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All posts for the month October, 2011

As some of you know, our constant growth has forced us to open up what we refer as F2 or Forged2. This is a second location just 2 minutes from our main location which houses our race fabrication department, parts development center, engine building room, and transmission assembly quarters. Each section of F2 is fully stocked with the necessary equipment and amble room to build and maintain the high powered race and street vehicles we are known for preparing. Our lead fabricator, Chris, can build just about anything from raw slabs and tubes of metal.

Another thing F2 is great for is it’s industrial style location for photoshoots! The warehouse area makes a great spot to park a car, hook up my strobes, and fire away. We have been so busy with track events almost every weekend that I really haven’t had time to do any static automotive photography. Before we headed out for this weekend’s PCA event at Road Atlanta, I decided to do a quick legit photoshoot of the Forged Performance GT-R. As many of you know, the Forged GT-R is among the fastest road racing GT-R’s in the country and attracts an enormous amount of attention on the street and track. That’s right, this baby is still tagged, titled, and insured! I am pretty happy with the results of the shoot and just wanted to share some pictures with everyone.

Once again the Forged Performance Team had another very productive weekend of motorsports activities that I am here to share with everyone. We left the shop late Thursday night to make the short drive to Nashville Tennessee where our friends, Tracks Unlimited had reserved Nashville Super Speedway for a two day HPDE Event.

After getting a few hours sleep at our hotel Thursday night we arrived at the track Friday morning bright and early for the drivers meeting. Friday’s event was unique, in that we had the opportunity to host the Porsche Exclusive HPDE Track Day. This was the second time we’ve help run this event with Tracks Unlimited taking the lead.

Sharif had the special privilege of being invited to be the Chief Instructor for Fridays and Saturday’s event. This event was mostly made up of new Porsche owners that had never experienced on track performance driving and he welcomed the opportunity to share some insights for a safe and fun track day experience. For this reason Sharif spent two hours in the classroom each day with the group of very enthusiastic drivers making sure everyone was aware of proper track etiquette, safety and familiarized each student with the fundamentals of high performance driving. And as Porsche owner himself, everyone was eager to go for ride-alongs throughout the day.

The rest of my day was spent on the side of the track with the beautiful sounds of GT2, GT3, Panamera and every other type of Porsche you can think of zooming past me. I could clearly see the progression of the drivers as the day went on and everyone seamed to really be enjoying themselves. Proper instruction and seat time is just one of those things that are to never be underestimated and one of the many reasons that we rarely if ever, see car to car contact or other car damage. By the end of the day I had heard from a few Porsche owners about how much they really enjoyed driving their cars like they were built to be driven. I honestly believe we saw many car owners become hooked on the track day experience and I am certain I will see many of these guys and girls again.

Saturdays event was an open track event that welcomed drivers of all makes and models to participate and many of the Porsche owners stuck around for some more seat time. The weather was perfect and the overall vibe around the track was one of excitement and anticipation. Once the drivers meeting was completed cars were starting to hit the track and it was clear today’s drivers meant business. Some very fast cars and drivers had showed up to this event to kill some brakes and tires. There was something for everyone here from the remaining Porsche’s, Corvette’s, Evo’s, Mustang’s, GT-R’s, ect…which definitely made for some interesting cat and mouse chase battles through out the day. Because of the mix of very fast cars being driven very hard there were quite a few spins and ventures off the track but thankfully everyone was able to go home with no damage to themselves or their cars. Although reports indicate that the group murdered more than one cone. We would like to thank Tracks Unlimited for hosting another great event, it is always a great pleasure of our to be able to participate in their events.

Over the next few days I will be doing the post production of my video coverage of this event, but I wanted to at least get some photos up. I hope everybody enjoys the shots and be on the look out for another thread with my video!

We are just wrapping up another Forged Performance Nissan GT-R VR38 FP1-R Shortblock build. This particular engine is being shipped to a customer in the Netherlands. Our customer wanted a motor that could handle in the quadruple WHP numbers and our FP1-R was the perfect match for his build plan.

Many of you are familiar with our long history of building high powered engines in the 350Z VQ35 world long before the GT-R was even a pre-production prototype. With years of experience working with Nissan engines, we started with a solid understanding of how Nissan builds their VQ35, VQ37HR, and now the VR38′s.

Back in late 2008, we started formulating the key elements of our engine program for the VR38 and quickly introduced one of the first built engines for the Nissan GT-R. At the time, you’ll recall a few debates about the best way to build the VR38 and whether wet sleeves, liners, or OEM was the best way to go. Drawing from our past experience with the VQ35 and various weaknesses we saw, we made the decision to use our own custom nodular iron registered liners (not wet sleeves) in our FP1-R shortblocks. This provides tremendous cylinder wall strength, without compromising the structural integrity of the OEM aluminum block.

We start with a BRAND NEW VR38 block casting, crankshaft, and all new OEM supporting parts. The OEM rods and pistons are replaced with Manley forged rods, and our own moly coated FP Spec Arias Extreme Duty pistons. To this day, we haven’t seen a piston that is stronger and more durable than our design; a design that has been proven in hundreds of Nissan engines over the years. The block is precision CNC machined to accept a new nodular iron cylinder liner. The iron liner allows for the long term reliability and exceptional strength when running forged pistons at very high power levels and high RPM’s. The is the same proven strategy used in numerous 1500whp+ builds in the exotic car world. After the liners are fitted the cylinder walls are bored and honed to .0001 tolerance and the block is decked flat. The liners are purposely left .001-.002 above the deck for head gasket seating and block expansion purposes. Finally, all of our engines are measured and assembled entirely in house by our experienced engine builders to our precise clearances and specifications.

Our engines have been in high demand, so we’re shipping them out as soon as they are done. But once our backlog is relieved we’ll be stocking shortblocks on the shelf ready for immediate shipment. Available in 3.8L or 4.0L displacements at no extra charge.

This past weekend part of the Forged Performance Team headed to Virginia International Speedway for NASA’s OktoberFast, which is a three day HPDE track day and race. We brought out four Porsche GT3′s and one Nissan GT-R. Sharif was behind the wheel of the Forged Performance 996 GT3 while the other cars were driven and owned by long time customers and friends.

Here is the video I put together from some footage I got track side and in the paddock this past weekend.

Last Thursday was an extremely busy day here at Forged Performance as the usual motorsports team of Sharif, Alex, and me, loaded up our Porsche GT3 shop car and a customers GT3 in the trailer to make the 400 mile trip to Virginia International Speedway. This legendary road course was hosting NASA’s OktoberFast, which is a three day HPDE track day and race drawing motorsports enthusiasts from all around the country. We left our Marietta GA location with two red 996 GT3′s in the trailer behind the Forged Performance Ford F-450 tow rig just in time for Atlanta’s rush hour traffic. After sitting in traffic for a few hours and still not out of the Atlanta area we decided to stop for a quick bite to eat hoping traffic would pass while we got dinner. We weren’t so lucky and continued to creep along under 30mph until we eventually made it out of the metro area. While driving into the night we knew that our arrival at the track was going to be well past midnight. As we drove on the night continued to fade away into the early AM hours and I started to fall in and out of sleep in the very comfortable passenger seat of the F-450. In the midst of one of my “naps” I awoke to Sharif screaming something I won’t publicly put online and saw a large deer running directly in front of our truck followed by loud THUD then a THUMP THUMP with the sound of bones crunching. Gross. With 30,000 lbs of inertia at our back the large deer felt like nothing more than a speed bump and did no damage to the truck other than leaving a trail of unspeakables across the underside of the truck and 48ft trailer. Sharif declared, “If I don’t see warning lights on the dash I am NOT stopping” so we continued with our late/early commute to VIR. We finally rolled into our trackside hotel about 3:30AM. It was time to get a good, hard, solid 2.5 hours of sleep.

Friday morning came way too fast with the blaring sound of my Iphone alarm going crazy on the hotel night stand. Thankfully our drive to the paddock where we dropped the trailer a few hours earlier was less than 120 seconds from our hotel room. Once we got there we met up with two other customers and friends that also had brought their GT3′s to track VIR as well. Seeing our small claim of the paddock with four 996 GT3′s was pretty epic. One glance in our area and it was clear that our group meant business. After the drivers meeting was over with Sharif attended the instructors meeting and meet up with Troy, who was Sharif’s student for the weekend. He was brand new to track days and was very excited to have Sharif helping him learn proper high performance driving techniques. The rest of Friday was pretty laid back and chill with lots of open track time available. After a long day at the track and running low on sleep we decided it was time for dinner and get some rest.

After getting a decent nights rest Saturday’s IPhone alarm was much less annoying, I was refreshed and ready for another awesome day at one of the best road course tracks the East Coast has to offer. Saturday was a little more active with additional cars showing up to participate in the weekend’s activities. Sharif and the rest of our crew still managed to get squeeze plenty of track time in while I spent the majority of my day track side with my camera in hand. We wrapped Saturday evening up with dinner and a few games of pool at the Plantation Club House.

Sunday morning we got an extra hour of sleep due to no drivers meeting and arrived in the paddock full of energy and excitement for another day at one of our favorite tracks. Sunday was a little less crowded as a result of most people leaving early that morning or mid day but we tend to stick around till they kick us out. Later in the afternoon Sharif spontaneous decided to compete in the Time Trials Event with his 996 GT3 in the TTS class which is home to a lot of C6 Vettes with power, areo and slicks, despite being on borderline corded Hoosiers. After installing a transponder on the car, Sharif headed out to see what kind of times he could lay down on those worn out slicks. It was clear his “fast” line involved copious amounts of dirt and airbore action that impressed the onlookers. He knew he was providing some entertainment when the corner workers give a big thumbsup for an impressive show. Being track side I could see the car wanting to slide around in the low speed, technical parts of the track. To my amazement Sharif was still able to put down a VERY impressive 2.04 lap time while sliding around a quarter of the track! Keep in mind this GT3 has a stock power plant and puts down only 330whp through the rear wheels. After the TT Event was completed we decided it was time to pack it up and head back to Atlanta…..we did have to go work the next morning! We ended up leaving VIR for a peaceful and uneventful six hour journey back to the shop.

Our weekend was absolutely packed full of track time, good people, lots of laughter, awesome cars and very little sleep. We are very grateful for the great times and amazing people we are blessed to share these types of weekends with and want to invite anybody that loves motorsports to attended a track day with us. I always keep our Facebook updated with events we will be attending and we love to have people come keep us company under our tent! So stop by our trailer anytime to to hang out, grab a cold drink or inquire about a ride a long in one of the Forged Performance shop cars.

I hope you enjoy the photos from the NASA OktoberFast Event and be on the look out for another thread featuring my video of this event!